The present invention relates to processes for forming backplanes for electro-optic (electronic) displays. This invention also relates to certain improvements in non-linear devices for use in such backplanes and to processes for forming such non-linear devices.
The term “electro-optic” as applied to a material or a display, is used herein in its conventional meaning in the imaging art to refer to a material having first and second display states differing in at least one optical property, the material being changed from its first to its second display state by application of an electric field to the material. Although the optical property is typically color perceptible to the human eye, it may be another optical property, such as optical transmission, reflectance, luminescence or, in the case of displays intended for machine reading, pseudo-color in the sense of a change in reflectance of electromagnetic wavelengths outside the visible range.
The terms “bistable” and “bistability” are used herein in their conventional meaning in the art to refer to displays comprising display elements having first and second display states differing in at least one optical property, and such that after any given element has been driven, by means of an addressing pulse of finite duration, to assume either its first or second display state, after the addressing pulse has terminated, that state will persist for at least several times, for example at least four times, the minimum duration of the addressing pulse required to change the state of the display element. It is shown in published U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0180687 that some particle-based electrophoretic displays capable of gray scale are stable not only in their extreme black and white states but also in their intermediate gray states, and the same is true of some other types of electro-optic displays. This type of display is properly called “multi-stable” rather than bistable, although for convenience the term “bistable” may be used herein to cover both bistable and multi-stable displays.
Several types of electro-optic displays are known. One type of electro-optic display is a rotating bichromal member type as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,808,783; 5,777,782; 5,760,761; 6,054,071 6,055,091; 6,097,531; 6,128,124; 6,137,467; and 6,147,791 (although this type of display is often referred to as a “rotating bichromal ball” display, the term “rotating bichromal member” is preferred as more accurate since in some of the patents mentioned above the rotating members are not spherical). Such a display uses a large number of small bodies (typically spherical or cylindrical) which have two or more sections with differing optical characteristics, and an internal dipole. These bodies are suspended within liquid-filled vacuoles within a matrix, the vacuoles being filled with liquid so that the bodies are free to rotate. The appearance of the display is changed to applying an electric field thereto, thus rotating the bodies to various positions and varying which of the sections of the bodies is seen through a viewing surface. This type of electro-optic medium is typically bistable.
Another type of electro-optic display uses an electrochromic medium, for example an electrochromic medium in the form of a nanochromic film comprising an electrode formed at least in part from a semi-conducting metal oxide and a plurality of dye molecules capable of reversible color change attached to the electrode; see, for example O'Regan, B., et al., Nature 1991, 353, 737; and Wood, D., Information Display, 18(3), 24 (March 2002). See also Bach, U., et al., Adv. Mater., 2002, 14(11), 845. Nanochromic films of this type are also described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,038, International Application Publication No. WO 01/27690, and in copending application Ser. No. 10/249,128, filed Mar. 18, 2003 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,950,220. This type of medium is also typically bistable.
Another type of electro-optic display, which has been the subject of intense research and development for a number of years, is the particle-based electrophoretic display, in which a plurality of charged particles move through a suspending fluid under the influence of an electric field. Electrophoretic displays can have attributes of good brightness and contrast, wide viewing angles, state bistability, and low power consumption when compared with liquid crystal displays. Nevertheless, problems with the long-term image quality of these displays have prevented their widespread usage. For example, particles that make up electrophoretic displays tend to settle, resulting in inadequate service-life for these displays.
Numerous patents and applications assigned to or in the names of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and E Ink Corporation have recently been published describing encapsulated electrophoretic media. Such encapsulated media comprise numerous small capsules, each of which itself comprises an internal phase containing electrophoretically-mobile particles suspended in a liquid suspension medium, and a capsule wall surrounding the internal phase. Typically, the capsules are themselves held within a polymeric binder to form a coherent layer positioned between two electrodes. Encapsulated media of this type are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,930,026; 5,961,804; 6,017,584; 6,067,185; 6,118,426; 6,120,588; 6,120,839; 6,124,851; 6,130,773; 6,130,774; 6,172,798; 6,177,921; 6,232,950; 6,249,271; 6,252,564; 6,262,706; 6,262,833; 6,300,932; 6,312,304; 6,312,971; 6,323,989; 6,327,072; 6,376,828; 6,377,387; 6,392,785; 6,392,786; 6,413,790; 6,422,687; 6,445,374; 6,445,489; 6,459,418; 6,473,072; 6,480,182; 6,498,114; 6,504,524; 6,506,438; 6,512,354; 6,515,649; 6,518,949; 6,521,489; 6,531,997; 6,535,197; 6,538,801; and 6,545,291; and U.S. Patent Applications Publication Nos. 2002/0019081; 2002/0021270; 2002/0053900; 2002/0060321; 2002/0063661; 2002/0063677; 2002/0090980; 2002/0106847; 2002/0113770; 2002/0130832; 2002/0131147; 2002/0145792; 2002/0154382, 2002/0171910; 2002/0180687; 2002/0180688; 2002/0185378; 2003/0011560; 2003/0011867; 2003/0011868; 2003/0020844; 2003/0025855; 2003/0034949; 2003/0038755; and 2003/0053189; and International Applications Publication Nos. WO 99/67678; WO 00/05704; WO 00/20922; WO 00/26761; WO 00/38000; WO 00/38001; WO 00/36560; WO 00/67110; WO 00/67327; WO 01/07961; and WO 01/08241.
Many of the aforementioned patents and applications recognize that the walls surrounding the discrete microcapsules in an encapsulated electrophoretic medium could be replaced by a continuous phase, thus producing a so-called polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display in which the electrophoretic medium comprises a plurality of discrete droplets of an electrophoretic fluid and a continuous phase-of a polymeric material, and that the discrete droplets of electrophoretic fluid within such a polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display may be regarded as capsules or microcapsules even though no discrete capsule membrane is associated with each individual droplet; see for example, the aforementioned 2002/0131147. Accordingly, for purposes of the present application, such polymer-dispersed electrophoretic media are regarded as sub-species of encapsulated electrophoretic media.
An encapsulated electrophoretic display typically does not suffer from the clustering and settling failure mode of traditional electrophoretic devices and provides further advantages, such as the ability to print or coat the display on a wide variety of flexible and rigid substrates. (Use of the word “printing” is intended to include all forms of printing and coating, including, but without limitation: pre-metered coatings such as patch die coating, slot or extrusion coating, slide or cascade coating, curtain coating; roll coating such as knife over roll coating, forward and reverse roll coating; gravure coating; dip coating; spray coating; meniscus coating; spin coating; brush coating; air knife coating; silk screen printing processes; electrostatic printing processes; thermal printing processes; ink jet printing processes; and other similar techniques.) Thus, the resulting display can be flexible. Further, because the display medium can be printed (using a variety of methods), the display itself can be made inexpensively.
A related type of electrophoretic display is a so-called “microcell electrophoretic display”. In a microcell electrophoretic display, the charged particles and the suspending fluid are not encapsulated within microcapsules but instead are retained within a plurality of cavities formed within a carrier medium, typically a polymeric film. See, for example, International Applications Publication No. WO 02/01281, and published U.S. Application No. 2002-0075556, both assigned to Sipix Imaging, Inc.
The aforementioned types of electro-optic displays are bistable and are typically used in a reflective mode, although as described in certain of the aforementioned patents and applications, such displays may be operated in a “shutter mode” in which the electro-optic medium is used to modulate the transmission of light, so that the display operates in a transmissive mode. Liquid crystals, including polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, are, of course, also electro-optic media, but are typically not bistable and operate in a transmissive mode. The backplanes of the present invention may be used with both reflective and transmissive displays, including conventional liquid crystal displays.
Whether a display is reflective or transmissive, and whether or not the electro-optic medium used is bistable, to obtain a high-resolution display, individual pixels of a display must be addressable without interference from adjacent pixels. One way to achieve this objective is to provide an array of non-linear elements, such as transistors or diodes, with at least one non-linear element is associated with each pixel, to produce an “active matrix” display. An addressing or pixel electrode, which addresses one pixel, is connected to an appropriate voltage source through the associated non-linear element. Typically, when the non-linear element is a transistor, the pixel electrode is connected to the drain of the transistor, and this arrangement will be assumed in the following description, although it is essentially arbitrary and the pixel electrode could be connected to the source of the transistor. Conventionally, in high resolution arrays, the pixels are arranged in a two-dimensional array of rows and columns, such that any specific pixel is uniquely defined by the intersection of one specified row and one specified column. The sources of all the transistors in each column are connected to a single column electrode, while the gates of all the transistors in each row are connected to a single row electrode; again the assignment of sources to rows and gates to columns is conventional but essentially arbitrary, and could be reversed if desired. The row electrodes are connected to a row driver, which essentially ensures that at any given moment only one row is selected, i.e., that there is applied to the selected row electrode a voltage such as to ensure that all the transistors in the selected row are conductive, while there is applied to all other rows a voltage such as to ensure that all the transistors in these non-selected rows remain non-conductive. The column electrodes are connected to column drivers, which place upon the various column electrodes voltages selected to drive the pixels in the selected row to their desired optical states. (The aforementioned voltages are relative to a common front electrode which is conventionally provided on the opposed side of the electro-optic medium from the non-linear array and extends across the whole display.) After a pre-selected interval known as the “line address time” the selected row is deselected, the next row is selected, and the voltages on the column drivers are changed to that the next line of the display is written. This process is repeated so that the entire display is written in a row-by-row manner. Thus, in a display with N rows, any given pixel can only be addressed for a fraction 1/N of the time.
Processes for manufacturing active matrix displays are well established. Thin-film transistors, for example, can be fabricated using various deposition and photolithography techniques. A transistor includes a gate electrode, an insulating dielectric layer, a semiconductor layer and source and drain electrodes. Application of a voltage to the gate electrode provides an electric field across the dielectric layer, which dramatically increases the source-to-drain conductivity of the semiconductor layer. This change permits electrical conduction between the source and the drain electrodes. Typically, the gate electrode, the source electrode, and the drain electrode are patterned. In general, the semiconductor layer is also patterned in order to minimize stray conduction (i.e., cross-talk) between neighboring circuit elements.
Liquid crystal displays commonly employ amorphous silicon (“a-Si”), thin-film transistors (“TFT's”) as switching devices for display pixels. Such TFT's typically have a bottom-gate configuration. Within one pixel, a thin-film capacitor typically holds a charge transferred by the switching TFT. Electrophoretic displays can use similar TFT's with capacitors, although the function of the capacitors differs somewhat from those in liquid crystal displays; see the aforementioned copending application Ser. No. 09/565,413, and Publications 2002/0106847 and 2002/0060321. Thin-film transistors can be fabricated to provide high performance. Fabrication processes, however, can result in significant cost.
In TFT addressing arrays, pixel electrodes are charged via the TFT's during a line address time. During the line address time, a TFT is switched to a conducting state by changing an applied gate voltage. For example, for an n-type TFT, a gate voltage is switched to a “high” state to switch the TFT into a conducting state.
Many electro-optic materials require application of a drive voltage for a significant switching time (typically of the order of 10−2 to 10−1 seconds) to effect a transition between their two extreme optical states. For high resolution displays containing at least (say) 100 rows and columns, if a reasonable scan rate is to be maintained, the period for which an individual pixel is addressed during a single scan is much less than the switching time of the electro-optic medium, and accordingly much of the switching of a pixel is effected by the voltage which remains on the pixel electrode between successive times of addressing the pixel (i.e., while other rows of the display are being addressed). This remaining voltage gradually decays due to current passing through the electro-optic material of the pixel and any current leakage through the non-linear element. The rate at which this decay occurs can be reduced (and the average voltage applied to the pixel during one complete scan of the display thus increased—this is commonly referred to as “increasing the voltage holding capacity” of the pixel) by connecting the pixel electrode to a capacitor.
At least some of the aforementioned electro-optic media can be made sufficiently flexible to permit their use in flexible displays based upon flexible substrates such as metal or polymeric films. However, manufacturing flexible microelectronic backplanes for such displays presents many challenges. Flexible substrates such as the polyimide-over-steel substrates described in the aforementioned 2002/0019081 will likely require specialized tooling for substrate handling. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, the required tooling does not exist. Secondly, a substantial investment by an existing display manufacturer will be required. This investment includes taking an existing glass-fab off-line, retrofitting the equipment, bringing the fab back on-line, and climbing the yield curve again. After retrofitting a fab for flexible substrates, it may not be possible to simultaneously process glass substrates due to the differences in the fixtures required. Thick steel substrates may not require as much specialized tooling for handling; however, display manufacturers may still be hesitant to process steel substrates due to contamination concerns and other issues. In any case, display manufacturers may be unwilling to make the required investment during the early stages of flexible display development.
In one aspect, the present invention allows a flexible display to be manufactured in an existing glass fab with virtually no changes to the facility. The fab could stay on-line and would be able to simultaneously produce flexible and glass backplanes. The invention provides a process in which a microelectronic display is fabricated on a rigid carrier and then released to produce a flexible display.
In another aspect, this invention seeks to reduce one major factor in the cost of preparing active matrix backplanes for electro-optic displays, namely the patterning steps; the present invention seeks to reduce the number of patterning steps needed.
In another aspect, this invention seeks to reduce the cost of diode backplane by replacing photolithography steps with printing.
Finally, this invention relates to improvements in drivers for electro-optic displays using an impulse sensitive electro-optic medium.